Law School lends a hand with new social care website

Cardiff University School of Law and Politics has this week launched a new, freely accessible website, Children's Social Care Law in Wales as part of the nation-wide initiative, Foster Care Fortnight. The website has been designed to assist social workers, social care practitioners, foster carers and advisers navigate their way through current law relating to services for children and young people in Wales.

The site has been developed by Law lecturer Dr Julie Doughty in conjunction with the regulator of the social care profession in Wales, Care Council for Wales; The Fostering Network (Wales) which supports and advises fosterers; The British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF); and CASCADE, the Children's Social Care Research and Development Centre which is also based at Cardiff University.

Dr Doughty explained: 'Although law-making powers in social welfare have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly, we have a framework of older laws that cover both England and Wales, some that differ slightly between England and Wales and some that apply in Wales only. It can sometimes be difficult for non-lawyers who support children and young people to know where to find the right law applying to a specific situation so we have developed this website to help. People working in this area are very busy, so our aim is to make their lives easier.'

Foster Care Fortnight is the UK's biggest foster care awareness-raising campaign, delivered by The Fostering Network. There are around 3,000 fostering households in Wales, looking after more than 4,300 children; the campaign highlights the need for more foster carers, with the highest demand for foster carers for older children, sibling groups and disabled children.